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I'm envious of the Chase Masterson flirting. Suzy Plakson did that with me at a Creation Con in NJ, and I almost hyperventilated.

Good point about the DS9 anniversary being all but forgotten. I've been rewatching it lately (just finished S5), and apart from the unbearable Ferengi comedy episodes, it still holds up as a great show.

I always thought that B5 had more in common with Lord of the Rings than DS9.

I was waiting for someone to say that.

Another thing people aren't mentioning (it may be later in the thread) is the serial nature of the DS9 story. Trek was really a bottle-type of show where the universe was largely the same after as before. B5 was designed with one long "arc". Some episodes could stand alone and had little "arc" material, but those tended to be the weakest. The innovation, the "draw" of B5 was the "arc" and that is what DS9 started to do more and more as the series went on, where you really had to tune in each week to follow what was happening. So my feeling is that DS9 saw how B5 was earning, if not ratings, at least critical praise for the "arc" and how it made B5 feel "epic" and decided to make the serial story format more prominent.

And sure enough, later on serial-type stories like Lost, Battlestar Remake, etc... are the standard rather than the exception with A-list 1-hour dramas.

I always thought that B5 had more in common with Lord of the Rings than DS9.

I was waiting for someone to say that.

Another thing people aren't mentioning (it may be later in the thread) is the serial nature of the DS9 story. Trek was really a bottle-type of show where the universe was largely the same after as before. B5 was designed with one long "arc". Some episodes could stand alone and had little "arc" material, but those tended to be the weakest. The innovation, the "draw" of B5 was the "arc" and that is what DS9 started to do more and more as the series went on, where you really had to tune in each week to follow what was happening. So my feeling is that DS9 saw how B5 was earning, if not ratings, at least critical praise for the "arc" and how it made B5 feel "epic" and decided to make the serial story format more prominent.

And sure enough, later on serial-type stories like Lost, Battlestar Remake, etc... are the standard rather than the exception with A-list 1-hour dramas.

The trend for serialized A-list drama begins in the 80s with shows like Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere and LA Law. It was a trend that Star Trek was already behind on. I think those shows had a bigger impact on the people behind DS9 going for serialized story telling than B5 did.

I always thought that B5 had more in common with Lord of the Rings than DS9.

I was waiting for someone to say that.

Another thing people aren't mentioning (it may be later in the thread) is the serial nature of the DS9 story. Trek was really a bottle-type of show where the universe was largely the same after as before. B5 was designed with one long "arc". Some episodes could stand alone and had little "arc" material, but those tended to be the weakest. The innovation, the "draw" of B5 was the "arc" and that is what DS9 started to do more and more as the series went on, where you really had to tune in each week to follow what was happening. So my feeling is that DS9 saw how B5 was earning, if not ratings, at least critical praise for the "arc" and how it made B5 feel "epic" and decided to make the serial story format more prominent.

And sure enough, later on serial-type stories like Lost, Battlestar Remake, etc... are the standard rather than the exception with A-list 1-hour dramas.

The trend for serialized A-list drama begins in the 80s with shows like Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere and LA Law. It was a trend that Star Trek was already behind on. I think those shows had a bigger impact on the people behind DS9 going for serialized story telling than B5 did.

I know that we think of it has a "bottle" show now, but at the time TNG was heavily praised for showing character development and referencing details from previous episodes, like Picard's flute or Worf's relationship with the Klingon empire.

DS9 and Voyager to a lesser extent, just pushed the envelope a little farther.

Hold on ... didn't Dukhat come later in B5? I thought he was retconned into B5 early history in the movie In The Beginning.

Not at all. He was mentioned as early as 'Soul Hunter', episode 102, and again in several other episodes (A Voice in the Wilderness, A Late Delivery from Avalon, Severed Dreams, Babylon Squared and Atonement).

And if it's any consolation, this summer the Phoenix ComicCon is having a huge Babylon 5 20th anniversary cast reunion. OTOH, no one seems to give a crap about DS9's 20th.

That is one drawback for DS9 and all of the other Star Trek spinoffs. Their identity is somewhat subsumed within the overall franchise. So when we have a 40th anniversary or 50th anniversary for Star Trek as a whole, the spinoffs get some recognition as part of that, but rarely as their own independent entities, separate from the rest of the franchise.

Hold on ... didn't Dukhat come later in B5? I thought he was retconned into B5 early history in the movie In The Beginning.

Not at all. He was mentioned as early as 'Soul Hunter', episode 102, and again in several other episodes (A Voice in the Wilderness, A Late Delivery from Avalon, Severed Dreams, Babylon Squared and Atonement).

Jan

True, though because of the 1 year delay in the production for B5 Season 1, "Soul Hunter" wasn't produced until well after the character Dukat appeared in DS9's premiere.